Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Terrain Editor => Topic started by: bustr on November 06, 2017, 10:07:13 AM
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I'm posting screen shots of testing the Med Tile set in the terrain editor along with testing some topographical features I'm thinking about "inspired" by East Africa and the Rift Valley. Except for the agrarian tiles in the set which look more like North Africa and the middle east, all the trees are from sub Sahara Africa. I'm trying to develop techniques for creating topo features similar "up to a point" to what can be found in the Rift Valley and Serengeti.
The wire frame polymesh in the project work space has many limitations. After two Melee arena terrains I've learned the hard way that I need to see the completed project in my imagination down to every square mile. Then imagine the topo features and how airfields and tank combat will interact with that topography. And this time instead of creating a basic land mass heightmap file, popping that up in the terrain editor in 5 seconds, and start carving away at it. Which has ended up with me running into road blocks every few miles of carving or setting up combat areas. And then weeks into it discovering the simple way to create the same results, this time I'm testing topo features and how I will have airfields and tank combat interact with them before I start sculpting away.
While doing this topo testing I get the opportunity to learn the tile set, it's blending limitations, and how to adjust it for tank combat. This tile set could really use a reddish brown textured volcanic rock tile.
A test terrain and an initial attempt at getting a look at the tile set and blending it.
(https://s20.postimg.org/syfxvfbvh/medtst01.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/gwkk1apsd/medtst02.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/a642rvacd/medtst03.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/u0q4dz2el/medtst04.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/hm3cdnim5/medtst05.jpg)
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Working on topo structures and tile blending to look like something from the region in Africa. You can see step erosion faces are not an option due to a limitation in the smallest size of the polygon units for a square face.
(https://s20.postimg.org/bkaeuwbjx/medtst06.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/hxzhy4tal/medtst07.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/nyx6v8arx/medtst08.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/aurmij3al/medtst09.jpg)
A limitation to blending tiles on vertical faces when only a single rock type is available, kind of flat and Meh.
(https://s20.postimg.org/uqnlxzcl9/medtst10.jpg)
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More erosion effect made a better mountain.
(https://s20.postimg.org/kn8zw28hp/medtst11.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/l00e2ao7h/medtst12.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/ytoqrbe7x/medtst13.jpg)
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Testing placing a bridge across a dry gorge. This is a proof of concept mostly, I have more tests of different gorges and water cut ways to look at to test bridges and GV spawns. I need to create a mini area of a 5000ft plateau transitioning down to a flat land with a 25 mile wide rift running through it cut by a river with progressive step downs and meanders. It's doable, that will be another experiment to develop the techniques and test creating a combat area split by the river. So this simple gorge test is like planting an acron to end up with an oak tree...... :O
(https://s20.postimg.org/lhdmilj7h/medtst14.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/jct9hhezx/medtst15.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/p0zk8ee7h/medtst16.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/f3ojfbr65/medtst17.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/n96ldhn4t/medtst18.jpg)
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So now I have a 5000ft escarpment, a space wider than one sector and I can create a rift valley with a river meandering down it as the boarder between two country's. The goal is to use a rift valley as the boarder for each country. I also want to test field placements at 19 miles and side ravines feeding the meandering river that I can use for bridges to block the GV spawns. I won't mind scrubbing work here and starting over as I prototype things for the real terrain. And I'll probably use the bulldozer tool to rapidly cut the main ravine and river run.
When you look at the raw face of the 5000ft chunk of land laid down with the elevation tool set to 5000. Not much more I can do to texture it for an illusion of a vertical rock face. But random things need to be added to the already intense randomness for a sense of weathering. So here I get to develop the right technique for the look I want and not waste weeks on the production terrain.
(https://s20.postimg.org/w1bm182dp/medtst19.jpg)
Here is an example of how you can throw yourself with scale in the terrain editor versus logged in on the ground. That escarpment in the first screen shot just doesn't look 5000ft high. But, the rock behind the tank in the screen shot below might look just right even though it is 10,000ft high. As you try to build topo features lower than 5000ft, the limitations of the polymesh start making you compromise on detail.
(https://s20.postimg.org/u0q4dz2el/medtst04.jpg)
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Here is an example of how scale will throw you. I have my 5000ft escarpment, a 500ft valley base and side walls of 1500ft. The side walls are 25 miles apart so I can work into how I'll run a river, cut in some lakes and run feeder streams or something like that. This rift valley will define a boarder between country's and allow me to space feilds at 19 miles.
In these two screen shots, that 1000ft of exposed side wall looks like it just cannot be 1000ft tall even butted up to that 5000ft tall escarpment. This is how scale will get away from you if you try to make things to scale for a 20,000ft giant instead of the perspective from a tank on the ground.
Also these are magic numbers for gray scale elevations so I only need to use three gray scale colors when I create the basic heightmap file that will popup my foundation land masses in 5 seconds as an import. I export a heightmap file and pull those three shades of gray for the master 2048x2048 heightmap RAW file I will build later on. Right now I need to sculpt and try out different ideas across this segment of a rift valley.
Why am I concerned with a 5000ft escarpment, one will ring the terrain with a 10 sector diameter. So I also have to come up with a convincing transition illusion out of the escarpment into the rift valley. Thus the need to experiment for some time. I've found that once I create a look, recreating it subsequent times is much faster, and I can add better embellishments than the very first attempt.
(https://s20.postimg.org/kzb4h0aot/medtst20.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/512eqvo6l/medtst21.jpg)
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I thought I could get away from having to create a 1:1 blueprint so soon. This is a 2048x2048 8pixel=1mile and even with the 25 mile sector grid and 25mile concentric rings, it looks tiny. That space is 250x250 miles. The brown is 5000ft and the green is 500ft and those country borders in red are 25miles wide. They are where I'm putting the rift valleys. There is enough pond in the center to support three CV task groups, I needed some place logical for the water systems to runoff to. I will add three additional color arcs 3000, 2000, 1000 into one of the country pies, then cut in the core canyon system down to 500ft. Then copy that and duplicate it two more times around the circle. That way when I convert this to grayscale and then into a heightmap, it will import into the terrain editor popping up the elevations with the core canyons in place to a depth of 500ft.
The Catch:22 here is I may need to place the finished positions of all the bases and strats then cut the canyons and water ways. The single sector back into the center of each country extension of the pond is to have a protect-able location for the three ports. As I cut canyons and water runoffs the shape with become more organic. Just like laying out the grid on a wood wall panel to carve in ornamentation.....
(https://s20.postimg.org/7816lmdhp/medtst22.jpg)
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Now I have a basic topo block elevation map I can convert to grayscale and then into a heightmap later. I need to map out feilds\strat\port so I can work in a basic water cut erosion canyon system. The top of the sides of rift valleys tend to have level areas where water runoff cuts canyons into the face of the vertical sides. Then at some distance back from that land will be much lower and in Africa, with large plains.
I've set the elevation blocks by color, 5000, 3000, 2000, 1000, 500. When I make the grayscale map I'll do an export from the terrain editor of a heigtamp with elevations tests I will place on it. I'll get the grayscale color number from those and duplicate the shapes from the blueprint into a 16bit png multi-layer grayscale file. When the layers are merged a clean border between color shades is produced which will give me crisp steps between elevations after the import.
A 1:1 2048 blueprint map basic elevation block. Does not look like much land which is misleading to just how much sculpting you will have to do once you get down to ground level in the terrain editor. And even worse when you lay in a field so you can run around offline to look at things. Offline, suddenly that one slice of the 10sector diameter pie is ginormous.
(https://s20.postimg.org/5obilk9st/medtst24.jpg)
Cross sectional guide line for the three country that I will be sculpting. As the land rifts by tectonic plates pulling apart, the walls of the valley are heaved up while the land back from that may depress. Also volcano's will form along the walls. I'm still deciding If I want to pull a 500ft green area up the center of the country or, hand cut that depression. This is where I have to map all the bases very early to help me guide the illusion of the rift topography to harmonize with the base layout. It's always compromises to meet the rules for field distance placement. It's not a good idea to be stuck placing an airfield at the bottom of a 1000ft canyon only 2miles wide after you sculpted your masterpiece first, mapping base layouts second.
(https://s20.postimg.org/f8v58gma5/medtst25.jpg)
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Now I have a drainage bowl in each country for all the runoff and a large plain. The drainage system lets me run waterways near feilds and use bridges. Then I can create the illusion of that path is natural for that waterway in the overall scheme of things.
(https://s20.postimg.org/x94ccl6ot/medtst26.jpg)
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A minor adjustment to the water area and the land is better balanced.
I just went through two iterations of a heightmap test before I realized why my attempts to create land 500ft above sea level was giving me negative values. With 16bit grayscale I was looking at "0" as sea level so I thought gray value 500 would be +500ft. Hitech's world starts at -1000ft below "0" so everything above sea level begins with 1001. Douh!! Now I can copy and past each of the color elevation layers into a Krita 16bit grayscale PNG file, and produce a RAW heightmap file to popup my basic land mass for my project.
Still have to come up with all of the field and strat placements so I can create the foundation canyons for the runoff system. I probably should throw in a 12,000ft boarder just outside of the 2048x2048 CBM map porthole to give the edges of the terrain a finished look.
(https://s20.postimg.org/g1ks42jl9/medtst27.jpg)
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It evolves on, now I need to make two copies of the field layout layer, rotate them into the other countries and merge into one layer for my blueprint file.
(https://s20.postimg.org/ftzfwcdkt/medtst28.jpg)
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Layers make it possible to make two copies on two different layers of the first country field layout, rotate them into position, then merge all layers down into one layer. Then later you can transfer it to a CBM map and set those as white dot place holders on the terrain. If you want your GVers to not disappear, don't place many vehicle bases on your terrain. Instead give them spawns to follow the action and take part in it. Now I can paint in the primary canyons and stream runoff system so when I convert this to a heightmap file for import into the terrain editor, the import cuts all of that for me. Saves me going nuts by cutting down on micro sculpting. Those three lakes are natural basins for a drainage system and an excuse to run streams past feilds to place bridges across. Gotta entertain the GVers if I'm forcing them to follow the air combat activity and not ignore it battling between two GV bases all night. And upping the ante by making 50% of the airfields with the map room on the field.
Note to self: Hitech likes some bases not capture able by GVs. {I really hate designing the spawn system....that's not for some time though, weeeeee.}
(https://s20.postimg.org/mvav58hsd/medtst29.jpg)
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So how do I get these elevation blocks setup in a 16bit grayscale file so that the are seen in the import as different elevations? The next 5 screen captures are from my 1:1 blueprint, I'm leaving the water layer active for contrast to see the 5 different elevation blocks that will make my terrain. I'm showing this while I think about the drainage system and primary canyons. The biggest problem with carving is if you start by trying to trace everything from a CBM bitmap you have painted all this into. Using an art program to build it allows a faster prototyping. I like carving the world once I get the basic elevation blocks and ocean in place, it will end up randomized as I go along.
Blue is there to show water and in 16bit grayscale Hitech world is gray value -1000 to 1000. One foot above sea level is gray value 1001.
500ft. gray value 1500.
(https://s20.postimg.org/l8uubhzxp/medtst30.jpg)
1000ft. gray value 2000.
(https://s20.postimg.org/9wi8tpyyl/medtst31.jpg)
2000ft. gray value 3000.
(https://s20.postimg.org/v65v4l2el/medtst32.jpg)
3000ft. gray value 4000.
(https://s20.postimg.org/4xuqf7al9/medtst33.jpg)
5000ft. gray value 6000.
(https://s20.postimg.org/4xuqf72vh/medtst34.jpg)
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Now I add a drainage system layer to create drainage for the three basins and run 1\2 mile wide waterways past feilds two mile out from the field. On Oceania I ran the water way 2miles out from the center of the airfield, ran 3 bridges across the waterway and the GV spawns were at three mile, one mile past the bridges. Getting all of that cut in by the hieghtmap import saves weeks of work.
Naughty idea, place a town along a waterway a mile back and two of the three bridges closer to the town. Unless you run supplies or troops with an LVT, only two places to watch for eeeviiillll M3's. :O
(https://s20.postimg.org/uu4pafq5p/medtst35.jpg)
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With the success of shorter field distances and the down side that people happily flip a terrain faster, while having fun doing it. I'm incorporating the 13 mile distance into this terrain. So how do you control what happens to it? For one all of the feilds in the area don't have GV spawns. And second the two at 13 miles from each other only have map rooms on the field. The other four in this area, since I want to do 50\50 towns and map room on the field, it will have to grow on me as I reach the stage of the blueprint that I map out the GV spawn system. And that is another place to help players create activity or stagnate.
The area boxed in red is duplicated between all three countries. The numbers are the distance in miles between feilds. If this map goes into rotation early in the day, with current norms, the rook country inside of two hours may be down to 60-70% for their feilds before the prime time crew signs in and starts taking them back. If it comes on line in the evening, those will be very active areas of air combat.
I'm building my water ways and runoff streams to get bridges next to fields and towns. I still have to lay in the global crack system that will come out of the higher elvation red-brown area and down for the water feed for the streams. Because there are so few feilds in the three rift valleys, I may wait until I'm building the uplift zones at the sides of the green to add in cracks and feeder canyons. That is one of those create by hand things that takes seeing it in place to come up with the art work.
(https://s20.postimg.org/bs8r3kk4t/medtst36.jpg)
The area in question that will generate activity due to shorter distances and no GV spawns between these feilds.
(https://s20.postimg.org/wcdl227lp/medtst37.jpg)
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Saving myself weeks of sculpting by creating topo layers for my heightmap file. Since the field placements key off the water ways, it doesn't matter what I have to do to blend and form the higher elevations into these basin and low land elevations. After I convert all of these layers, 5000, 3000, 2000, 1000, 500, 100, 50, 25 feet to 16bit grayscale, I just merge all layers and I have a topo map to convert into a heightmap file.
(https://s20.postimg.org/ap3sj90jh/medtst38.jpg)
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And now I have all my basic elevations with feilds mapped so I can convert to a heightmap and sculpt the rest.
(https://s20.postimg.org/h8189tey5/medtst39.jpg)
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The terrain is called riftval and the elevations have tile painting so I can see the elevation demarcations. The import defaulted my 1\2 mile wide streams to 2 miles wide. So I have some fill to do. I raised a 12k boarder around the outside of the CBM porthole. That is what the shadow is on the south edge of the CBM.
(https://s20.postimg.org/l7xecl4t9/medtst41.jpg)
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This looks better so I know where my elevation lines are as I shrink the width on the waterways for bridge objects and start laying out the rift valley upthrusts and the highlands. I need to look at some more aerial photos of the highlands surrounding the rift valley in East Africa to come up with a plan to paint deep cracks and canyons along with shallow runoff erosions that are dry most of the year. I can simply paint this onto the CBM bitmap then transfer with a clutter tile brush to use for elevation carving.
(https://s20.postimg.org/m9vmva4wt/medtst42.jpg)
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Picked up some creep for field placement but, now is the time to adjust for that. This is why a 1:1 blueprint is so handy. And I trimmed 4 miles of the outer edge of the 12,000ft border for the terrain that sits just outside of the CBM porthole.
(https://s20.postimg.org/kt6sr2hal/medtst44.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/9nchqehhp/medtst45.jpg)
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Centering the field dot with the red location square all the way down to the surface, I use a 6mile diameter brush at 25ft and start adjusting. I'll have to lay down a port at each location and adjust the land for them. I narrowed down all the streams that a field will sit on and have bridges to a 1\4mile width. Doing the shore line finishing on those is a gigantic bite. Also I can never run the shore tool on this terrain or it will eliminate all the streams. But, you get a better random effect creating the shores by hand. Just set the raise hill tool to 1 and use a wide brush. It's a toss up using raise a hill or shift to cut 1ft\sec. You have to be really quick doing raise a hill to create a shore line or you can end up with a large sand berm.
I will have a lot of stream segments to shift 2miles away from the 1x1 square some of those dots will occupy as place holders during the terrain construction phase.
(https://s20.postimg.org/w34400ji5/medtst46.jpg)
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Now the land creep from the import has been cleaned up. I was right, the feilds along the streams, I'll have to move a segment of each stream to center the stream 2 miles from the field. The land on each side of every stream is 25ft, I've got to taper that down while keeping about 1\4 mile wide stream. Now that we have one off bridges that work, we need a tool that will adjust the shores of streams to accommodate the bridges. I suspect some how I could use the shore segment creation tool, I guess I could experiment.
(https://s20.postimg.org/tc01oi67x/medtst47.jpg)
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Now I get to build the first of three rift valleys, things like this for the first country are always a PITA. You have got to love the bulldozer tool for blending elevations, pulling long elevations of land blocks, cutting canyons\valleys\cracks, and trimming up long straight lines.
(https://s20.postimg.org/u59w8mxz1/medtst48.jpg)
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It's amazing what you can do with a few thousand vertical feet of wall, the bulldozer and smoothing tool. Not sure how this will play out when the wall is only 500-1000ft.
(https://s20.postimg.org/9g5wefan1/medtst49.jpg)
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I think I've got my technique for creating the wall effects for the main rift crack. About an hour of work randomizing the faces out to the wider spreading valley. Still need to come up with something to do with the large areas of 5k highland.
(https://s20.postimg.org/e1cso8scd/medtst50.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/kf1vris3h/medtst51.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/3radp0a6l/medtst52.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/6y4x8n2cd/medtst53.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/lhc2a2371/medtst54.jpg)
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Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My head hurts.
Building mountains is easy, it's the logical transitions of why and how geological features relate to each other. Then there is the strata in the walls I want to show through because of the nature of the upthrust zones on the sides of rifts. I've gotten my steps down to about 400ft, I'm working on getting at least 200ft if possible to be more visually convincing. This is like doodling with clay on a table until a good looking accident pops up. Gurgelsnort, fifferdoodle, razinfratsin, frikking, klingon burpping froglings doodlesnort......
(https://s20.postimg.org/ax3nimgwd/medtst55.jpg)
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Still trying out different techniques with the bulldozer tool to come up with a look for the rift walls. And how to transition down from the 12k terrain border wall and back in country from the rift through all the uplift ridges that eventually drop down into the runoff bowls. You can see in a few screen shots I used the bulldozer with a broad brush to wipe out and level a bunch of work that became to busy looking with no real sense of a transition to lower elevations. Mommas don't let your children grow up to make terrains......
I'm working in the left hand rift next to the edge of the map to come up with the look and techniques to apply on the two other rift valleys. Those mile wide long cuts running in from the edges of the map are the runoff base of the highland slopes on each side of them. I'm trying to keep the highlands to 5k with a 12k wall border just outside of 2048x2048 that will blend down into the 5k highlands.
(https://s20.postimg.org/kuust8a3h/medtst65.jpg)
One of the stepped fracture wall techniques I've been working on using the bulldozer tool. You can see on the left all the foundation terrain blocks I think will be the upthrust range. I'm still making changes on the fly even to those. You keep making changes and wiping out hours of work when it's just wrong until that eureka moment happens.
(https://s20.postimg.org/ybrrc34zh/medtst64.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/us5tm9ujx/medtst63.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/4wm331ifh/medtst62.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/hb8v3dpd9/medtst61.jpg)
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Along here in the next set of screen shots you will see the wide flat area above the runoff canyons where I used the bulldozer tool to wipe out a couple of days of work that was going nowhere. At the end of the rift crack I need to change that rounded end into a longer narrow crack.
(https://s20.postimg.org/u2n19vrfh/medtst60.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/6bnnrsedp/medtst59.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/e4ebjrs2l/medtst58.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/6of1y06y5/medtst56.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/kuust64xp/medtst57.jpg)
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Think I'm starting to get a handle on this style of terrain.
(https://s20.postimg.org/r2dzyqaxp/medtst66.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/hulri1yql/medtst67.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/6i9609xrh/medtst68.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/q03tg6zu5/medtst69.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/ik4jufmfh/medtst70.jpg)
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I went ahead and finished the back side of the hidden border wall because the 8mile top width was throwing off my perspective as I tried to transition down from the edge into the map. This corner area with a rift and the highlands running down to the water basin is where I'm developing the look for the rest of the terrain along with the techniques to shape the rest of the map. I've repeatedly erased hours of work in this spot because the look I want was going no where.
Back side of the border wall finished.
(https://s20.postimg.org/y70elm2gt/medtst72.jpg)
Now my problem is transitioning the rift range into the highlands with it all transitioning logically.
(https://s20.postimg.org/uan2pmwwt/medtst71.jpg)
I've run lines to show the ridge or outline a high area to leave in place and develop logical topographical features out of it.
(https://s20.postimg.org/6wf3dp79p/medtst73.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/vponed5pp/medtst74.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/poqyhaqt9/medtst75.jpg)
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Tiny random mountains under 4k are a bite.
(https://s20.postimg.org/s4xd8rg8d/medtst76.jpg)
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While making sure my micro mountains looked like random water cut high and low areas, I found an orphaned 3000ft elevation on the runoff plain to the lake. This happened when I decided where my main cut canyons to feed the stream in the lakes would be. So I terraced the orphaned area because it has an airfield in the center of it. Then I can worry about how to sculpt the elevations, runoff cuts, and rational for a town or no town when I finish all the rift valley mountain and crack systems. The vast majority of small mountains on this terrain will have trees all over them but, the challenge will be to create an illusion of the water runoff system with sandstone and other light tiles running through out the bottoms of all the tiny canyons. The illusion matters even during a furball while you aren't paying attention. Otherwise why did IL2 and WT map designers go to so much trouble over their terrains for a bunch of ungrateful kids?
(https://s20.postimg.org/emipecbe5/medtst79.jpg)
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Never be afraid to ruthlessly scrub something and start over. Don't get caught so far out in the weeds with a bad idea that you are afraid to have to redo it because you don't want to put all that time back into it. Bad topo ideas are bad topo ideas if you have a mental image of how topography is suppose to look with your terrain. So catching this point sooner and scrubbing it will help you to not have to later on hate some part of your terrain because you compromised on not wanting to expend the time to make it right. That will effect all of your decisions as you go along if you compromise and create that habit. Learn the limitations of the polymesh and compromise with that since you cannot change it.
There was a topo transition here that allowed for the airfield placement but, I didn't like how it looked once I shaped all of the micro mountains. So I raised up two mounds and pulled the bulldozer tool between them to set the terrain back to building blocks so I can start over. I really wish Waffle had added a red brown textured rock tile to this set because that's the average color of that kind of rock from the Med through East Africa.
(https://s20.postimg.org/lnbal4i25/medtst80.jpg)
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I've developed my small mountain range technique about as far as the polymesh will allow. So painting it to visually create a 3D contrast is the next step along with testing the Med tile set for how tiles interact and how bad boundaries are between different tiles. This is where I wish Hitech had created a universal blend tool that would remove the boundary lines that form between tiles that are out of sequence. Or at least set a third tile that performs that function. In the Med set the two given that function are not the best for blending boarder lines on predominate green colored tiles which I'm using to create the uplands and Savannah on this terrain.
Some testing with the tiles to paint the low mountains.
(https://s20.postimg.org/o2gzydrtp/medtst82.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/5znx76qu5/medtst83.jpg)
After painting the mountains I discovered a problem. I was so focused on carving the mountain blocks I defined the mountain area with that I created a straight line defining the transition edge of the range into the lowlands. Once you paint structures you start seeing definition that the default mono coloring won't show. So I have to pull a random transition runoff area to blend into the lowlands.
(https://s20.postimg.org/n06tftlv1/medtst84.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/zetlg5l31/medtst85.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/pu9yta3gt/medtst86.jpg)
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It's subtle and boring looking but, I'm getting the techniques and design down now for wide area low alt mountain ranges\foot hills 3k and lower. This gets mind numbing but, while I'm grinding away, came up with some mental designs for the vehicle spawn paths.
Hills and low mountains, those strata shelf's are easy and very quick using the bulldozer tool. Then you have to touch then up a bit to get a weathered look to the sharp edges.
(https://s20.postimg.org/jvm1ok7sd/medtst87.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/5p6atc4n1/medtst88.jpg)
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Just overcame the equivalent of writers block on a transition from one topo feature into another. Pulled cuts on the large smoothed topo block to define canyons and now I just start cutting away around them. Just like doing relief carvings in wood of 3 dimensional scenes or Bas-relief in stone.
About 5 minutes of work with the bulldozer tool and a narrow brush to create a deep rift transition.
(https://s20.postimg.org/nx7q7u7fh/medtst89.jpg)
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Looking really nice.
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It never ceases to amaze me how fast you can create topography with only the bulldozer tool.
(https://s20.postimg.org/4f5rttm31/medtst90.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/7m0bdge8t/medtst91.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/illip3mod/medtst92.jpg)
The polygons are large so you have to accept that as your limitation to how granular you can make things. Just work with what you have with illusions to suggest what the eye wants to see.
(https://s20.postimg.org/gh15o0srh/medtst93.jpg)
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Slowly but surely I'm moving along while refining the look and techniques that will enable me to finish the two other rift valleys in much less time.
(https://s20.postimg.org/65te8rqcd/medtst94.jpg)
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This is making sense how to manipulate small areas of the mesh with the bulldozer tool and light applications of the elevation tool to create micro features like small runoff gullies, or rock strata, or rapidly cutting down a block into a small mountain. The underlying polymesh will deform in predictable manners, so in a sense go with the flow.
(https://s20.postimg.org/iaj83gc9p/medtst96.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/nly4o6625/medtst97.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/sxd18vcp9/medtst95.jpg)
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Think I've got it now, especially since I'm imposing elevation limitations so everything flows from the boarders of the terrain downhill to the center.
(https://s20.postimg.org/wo0k1l0b1/medtst98.jpg)
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This is working....
(https://s20.postimg.org/lrrppwwjh/medtst99.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/mu1w8g7n1/medtst100.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/mu1w8fzx9/medtst101.jpg)
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How do you blend a strata stepped rock pile into rift valley mountain wall?
(https://s20.postimg.org/6ueoyt1b1/medtst106.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/84ve3ba7h/medtst107.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/p5eabzuyl/medtst108.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/6pttelw9p/medtst109.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/c18pzbaml/medtst110.jpg)
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New topography themes take the most time when working them up with the first country. In this case a semi Africaesqu with rift valleys and a canyon land. Coming up with the look and techniques takes forever. Still it helps to find real world pictures of features that the terrain editor polygon mesh will support.
I'll be using this as a canyon building guide. I've been working on an illusion of these features in the rift valley crack at the edge of the terrain.
(https://s20.postimg.org/44412lf0t/canyon.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/44412ncgt/medtst114.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/q3afptj0d/medtst116.jpg)
I'm thinking about a canyon system to break up the vast 5000ft high green area in the back of each country. The canyons will be cut 6 miles wide down to 500ft. Then I'll use the elevation tool to step the walls up at every 500 or so feet to create a terraced look from a 1-2mile wide bottom of the canyon.
(https://s20.postimg.org/hxsdrpkhp/medtst112.jpg)
This takes time with so much detail but, I've created the two rift valley upthrust ranges and need some remnant elevations in the river valley. Then I can put those in place for two more countries. At least it will go faster now.
(https://s20.postimg.org/5vwzxk3jh/medtst113.jpg)
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I'm burn't out for the moment creating low elevation mountain ranges with a high number of runoff canyons. So I took the opportunity to accomplish two things at the same time. I need a transition topo feature from the edge of the map from all sides that is at 12,000ft. And I wanted to work with the tools to create canyons with stepped elevations since later I will cut them in all over the back field of each country.
This didn't turn out too bad with all the restrictions the polygon mesh imposes. The real trick will be building a canyon and doing this to both sides down into a 5000ft vertical cut.
(https://s20.postimg.org/r14aemp6l/medtst119.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/ojsj7e7v1/medtst120.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/y4c5u9ph9/medtst121.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/hgknrr7kd/medtst122.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/adcsc6k59/medtst123.jpg)
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More screen shots of the canyon wall or strat buttress cliffs.
Creating a down slope runoff transition in strata shelves rather than just shaping a giant water run off and talus slope.
(https://s20.postimg.org/9ntzzsh0t/medtst124.jpg)
Ground level view with trees for scale.
(https://s20.postimg.org/aq46icmzh/medtst125.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/g1j331e71/medtst126.jpg)
How it looks from the air at about 30,000ft. Painting all of this to look somewhat realistic in response to the topographical features is often as much of a bite as creating them in the first place. I may run some more shelves and cliffs down farther to transition into the 5,000ft area in the lower left corner as a canyon. Means taking those initial water cuts in the cliffs and logically extending them down as the start of smaller canyons. Wooof!!!!,,,this is a never ending story. I need to take some time to test the path tool river creation function and see how those turn out. I can already see two obvious feeder streams that I can run by two airfields in that valley and place the town on one side with bridges to cross.
(https://s20.postimg.org/xrkro3uct/medtst127.jpg)
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Tinkering with something you just built because you have an idea is a two edged sword, and you might end up scrubbing a whole area of work you just spent a week or so on.
It occurred to me that I have to run a transition from the 12,000ft border around the map down into the 5,000ft highland in the back 1\3 of every country. So I just spent two days working on stepp terraced cliffs. The tops of those cliffs I slightly rounded and left at that which cut out a block of time detailing the tops of those features. Since I'm creating a canyon land out of that 1\3 of each country which is 5,000ft high, I don't need to work so hard on complicated high to low elevation features like I cut the foundations in weeks ago. So I flattened all of those back to 5,000ft which blends nicely into the stepp terraced cliffs and gives me a transition into a runoff valley described by the rift valley mountain range meeting the 5,000ft highland. Dangit....I got so busy with this once again I forgot to test the river tool. Once you cut those cliff faces you can use the bulldozer tool to nudge around short distances to gradually weather down the face. The bi-liniar smoothing tool will suddenly slump a whole area or not target small areas like you want it to. It's better for large scale smoothing. The bulldozer tool set to the smallest brush and pulled in short motions will nudge small areas into shape that are easier to recover from if you nudge too far.
Building a terrain from scratch with a lot of topo detail is simple as long as you ask yourself where does the water go and follow that path as you sculpt.
(https://s20.postimg.org/9hh7zy5wt/medtst129.jpg)
Filled back in......
(https://s20.postimg.org/v3w8gzc71/medtst130.jpg)
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I was cleaning up the topography for the first rift valley and completing painting the mountains. This pressure crack is 4,000ft deep and maybe 1\4 mile at it's widest at the bottom. It's also a prototype for the canyon land system I will be putting into each country to use up the 5,000ft high backfield and have logical sources for the streams and rivers.
(https://s20.postimg.org/4bla3ewrx/medtst143.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/kzcs5xeot/medtst144.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/tudmgfo1p/medtst145.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/jx2lnd10d/medtst146.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/oiypvq9ot/medtst147.jpg)
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There is always something that holds you up creating the look of a terrain. Transitions in topography can be tough when you are trying to find a plausible feature. Then like playing solitaire, one or two cards flipped up and the game falls into place. It's funny how most of the topographical features I create show up in nature specials I watch just around the time I'm stumped for a plausible feature.
(https://s20.postimg.org/76vnphz1p/medtst152.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/h46oiktst/medtst153.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/mfll3a0fx/medtst151.jpg)
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I was stuck on how to transition that dog leg on the north side of the rift when I remembered rift valleys are tectonic plates pulling apart which creates volcanoes. Many of them are classic cinder cones covered in trees and grass. I swear sometimes these terrains blurr into creating the world for an anime movie.
(https://s20.postimg.org/thyq49zh9/medtst157.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/z650v6bjh/medtst158.jpg)
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It's a start....
(https://s20.postimg.org/nl41fg4z1/medtst159.jpg)
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The cinder cone in these screen shots is 7,000ft and 6miles across at the base. That is big enough that the smallest brush with the bulldozer tool will let you pull scale runoff canyons. But, once painted a second color, they look too big for the scale. Smoothing the run off canyons a bit and painting the cone one color, the graphics engine will generate shadows that suggest runoff canyons and the cone will look to scale.
The illusion with this terrain to present a 3D virtual world is the same illusion you accept to watch an anime movie. Except in the is case you get to be one of the actors because it's a game. A good anime movie will present terrain and other scenes back grounds with a certain amount of balance and scale that fits the theme. With the anime the writer sets you up with a story line so you are brought along with expectations that the anime artists try to produce in the 3D media of the film. With Aces High, inside of the polygon limitations you try to present enough of an illusion that it takes advantage of the graphics engine to present something the player's brain wants to accept as part of the fantasy called the game.
(https://s20.postimg.org/u2mxyukgd/medtst160.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/vufwtrbj1/medtst161.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/ry2kxsdot/medtst162.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/7qp55h0rx/medtst163.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/qj10924vx/medtst164.jpg)
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Looks good, Bustr! Thanks for taking the time to figure that editor out. Was beyond me!
Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk
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My wife studied art in college and graduated with a degree allowing her to teach art in primary education for awhile. She also sold her own art when she was in college. I've reached the point where I have to ask her about color relationships, perspective, and light where the human eye is concerned. Once I realized the size of the polygons in the mesh everything is constructed from will make everything turn out about the same no matter how you worry and slave over ever foot of anything. Construction got simple.
What is complicated and always screws you over unless you set hard rules on elevations is scale. Then how you paint so the eye sees what it expects to see. After that the player is agreeing to be in a fantasy world and if his eye is given the right fantasy, his brain will do the rest.
What you see inside of the terrain editor will not look like what you see in the game offline once you spawn out a tank. Geo features under a certain size cannot be made very granular and beautiful so the mistake everyone makes is to ignore scale and keep massaging the micro feature into a gigantic mistake. Offline that looks good but ultimately is too huge based on the arena world scale. The secret is to learn how to manage the small close up ugly features that even look ugly after you import a geomap into ARTIK's program if you happen to get up reallllyyy close to some small canyon by mistake.
These two pictures are good example of managing scale and painting. The first caldera just looks wrong, the second one, your brain keeps helping it to look better because it's closer to things you have seen in real life. Art in the terrain editor is a lot like Zen brush painting where you show a minimum of strokes that perfectly engage the brain to fill in the rest. Otherwise, the terrain editor is a clunky beast when you create things smaller than than 1\4 mile. So you create illusions....... I think I figured out what I want to do with that mesa ramp in the previous post, it looks orphaned and wrong in it's current configuration. So does it's terminus at the volcano.
This is a never ending create it, destroy part of it and go in a direction you didn't think of a day ago. I saw a caldera last night researching rift valley volcanoes that has a second lower caldera that created a large lava flow field, think that is how I'll make sense out of those structures to the left of the cone. I also spend a lot of time online looking at photos of the geo features I'm themeing my terrain around, then fighting with the polygon mesh to bring them into the arena. All of that before I create the bases and spawns and all those things players need to get onto the map.
You guys deserve better if it's possible since Hitech went to the trouble to upgrade the game to allow art work like this. :lol
(https://s20.postimg.org/vufwtrbj1/medtst161.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/ry2kxsdot/medtst162.jpg)
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Once you figure out where to put the foundation for a topo feature and then make all the large scale cuts into it. The bulldozer tool on the smallest brush will move, add, and subtract small areas of the gross feature allowing the polygon mesh to respond by reshaping it into it's most natural response. Versus trying to cut or add everything with the hill tool or the smoothing tool. It's like using two fingers to move clay around to create small features on the surface of a large clump.
The topography for this terrain is turning into building a 1000 piece puzzle by creating several hundred pieces as I go to paint a portrait by that many pieces at a time. I REALLY wish Waffle had added a red brown volcanic rock tile to this tile set.
(https://s20.postimg.org/ih9lsls99/medtst165.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/yqzrw3at9/medtst166.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/t43ey1fu5/medtst167.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/ejmc3s5m5/medtst168.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/dvdhk9efx/medtst169.jpg)
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One of the things that happens while you are busy creating primary topo features is orphans. Leftover topo odds and ends that you ended up with while cutting and shaping. Just next to those volcanoes was one and it created it's own quandary of why would that be there. So I made it look like the volcanoes came up in a pressure ridge orphaning that elevation from the mesa ridge next to it.
You can see the orphan feature just below the volcanoes in light green.
(https://s20.postimg.org/dvdhk9efx/medtst169.jpg)
I turned it into this to reflect the mesa ridge it was cut off from.
(https://s20.postimg.org/jsmvhqqlp/medtst170.jpg)
You can see another orphan with a base square on it to the south I'll have to deal with eventually.
(https://s20.postimg.org/i0twmueyl/medtst171.jpg)
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Rather than fight with it and try to pull something out of my hat, I used the Internet to look at volcanoes in the rift valley and found something in Kenya. 500,000 years ago a volcano erupted which spawned the eruption of 200 tiny volcanoes next to it. Great way to fill in that open space next to the large volcano. Many of the volcanoes in the rift valley are covered in greenery. A lot of what I'm creating are from rift valley photos of geo formations no one would believe exist in the real world. I get stumped for a solution, I just search for geo features in the Great Rift Valley in East Africa.
(https://s20.postimg.org/r8vbv4g8t/medtst172.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/4k64vk6kt/medtst173.jpg)
Looks like I'm out of excuses not to start another rift valley.......... :O
(https://s20.postimg.org/525vp43j1/medtst174.jpg)
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Found another set photos for that volcano area in Kenya.
My rendition before.
(https://s20.postimg.org/r8vbv4g8t/medtst172.jpg)
After...
(https://s20.postimg.org/aay5ehzyl/medtst175.jpg)
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I just had to keep reading about that volcano in Kenya.....
(https://s20.postimg.org/6rzosn9ot/medtst176.jpg)
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:bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead :bhead
I hate this frikken fraking polymesh grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr r............................ .
This is the bias angle to the cardinals that won't sculpt worth spit because it's a bias off a bias and grump grump crapppppppppppppppppppppppppp ppp.....So I have to manually build with the raise hill tool just to tear down to what I want. :furious
(https://s20.postimg.org/pnof39ost/medtst197.jpg)
(https://s20.postimg.org/9cob6yk0t/medtst198.jpg)